


When Final Words turn to Blood

by concavecrowns



Category: Gangsta. (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, Internal Monologue, as Doug stumbles down the street, i'm sorry i'm still crying, spoilers for chapter 25
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 11:52:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11691066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/concavecrowns/pseuds/concavecrowns
Summary: Doug's video message to Galahad Woehor left a lot unsaid. Maybe it wasn't necessary, but... What else had he meant to convey in those awkward, uncertain pauses? This is Doug's last thoughts, put to paper. Immortalizing him. He will be remembered. That's all he wanted.





	When Final Words turn to Blood

A man with no last name can hardly expect much from the world. A man in the body of a child with an early expiration date even less so.

 

Twilights. Tagged. Abnormals. Slaves. Whatever people called them, the dog tags hanging ‘round their necks marked that expiration date clearly. It painted a great red target and labeled them for slaughter. They had narrowly slipped through the bars of war and scratched out a hole for themselves in the dirt. A use for the government. A boogeyman for the “Normals” of the city. Twilights made them feel comfortable in their humanity, happy with the fact that they were normal and Twilights were other. They were all human anyway, but that was no longer a fact, as people knew facts, as society knew facts. As the government ignored facts, and powerful men in families that were meant to be your allies sent a knife into your back in the form of your friend.

 

It was no surprise Twilights were up for slaughter again.

 

Doug wasn't ready to die. No one can be ready to die. No one wants to, not really. The type who say they do just want existence to end. They don't want this slow, agonizing torture, as you feel the blood rising in your throat like bile, past your teeth and down your chin, blood oozing between thick, deep cuts in your skin. Splitting wide to reveal the bone in your arm to the biting air. They don't want to hold their guts in their hands, for fear their intestines will spill out from the hole in their abdomen and onto the uncaring concrete below.

 

Doug didn't want this. He wasn't ready. But he was a Twilight, and he was marked for death. He had prepared.

 

A short video sat quietly locked away in Doug’s dog tags. A message for Galahad Woehor -- his hero, mentor, and single most important person in his life. Doug stood dying, bleeding out on the streets, but he had to get that message to Gal.

 

It would be the last thing he ever did.

 

_ “From Southgate, Paulklee Guild, 93rd Trainee Squad. Doug, currently in the Sixth Army Group…” _

 

One dirty, shaking hi-top shoe lifted and fell before the other. The sole scuffed the dirt as he tripped. His chest hurt for more reason than the arcing line engraved into it. It was hard to breathe. Dully, Doug wondered if a bone pierced a lung or if it was his heart slowing. Blood pumping too sluggishly through his veins and out his body to keep his chest heaving. 

 

_ “This is for Gal… Er, wait, 71st Trainee Squad, First Army Group, Galahad Woehor. I’m leaving this record behind--” _

 

What had he left for Gal again? It was a message. A really important one. But now, bleeding out, stumbling away from battle, in the midst of it still, chaos, he couldn’t recall exactly what he had said. Doug reached for it, clumsily shoving less important memories and thoughts aside in his jumbled, one-track focused mind.

 

It came in spots. Bleeding out.

 

_ “Gal, if you want anything, take it. Otherwise, just throw it away. Oh, I’ve always hid money in the springs of my bed. Use it for drinking with Hausen or something. And... And…” _

 

Doug fell back heavily against a brick wall, narrowly avoiding a panicked Tagged scrambling ‘round the corner and down the street, their nails scraping the dirt. The sounds of explosives, screams, and chunks of flesh slapping against the ground followed behind them. Doug stilled as much as he could for a moment, gasping, waiting for the man’s pursuer to pass. Or was it a woman? 

 

Sweat and blood pasted Doug’s clothes to his flesh, sticking him to the hot brick. His legs threatened to give way at the brief respite. If he stopped moving, he would die. Too soon, too soon...

 

“ _ I don’t really have much to say.” _

 

There was so much more he had to tell Gal. Truths they both already knew, things that never had to be said. Two Tagged soldiers sitting on a roof, a man taking a seat beside an angry teenage kid. Taking the time to force that kid into the warmth of the Guild. Into what would become his home. Training him one-on-one, when Gal was already so busy. Joking with him even when he was unreceptive, yet knowing when to back off. 

 

Before Doug had known it, Gal had wound a rope ‘round Doug’s waist and slowly coaxed him into the wide open circle of family. He had reeled him in little by little--sometimes gently, other times rough with a tougher love--and by the end of it, Doug had found himself pressed into his chest, weaved in with Galahad’s own ropes bonding him to the Paulklee Guild. He even had some love for the Cristiano family, just because of Gal. 

 

But that was it, wasn’t it? Love. 

 

No. Everything that ran through Doug’s mind would never had made it onto film, even if he could go back and do it again. If he could do it all again, he’d do it all the same. Home, Gal, Nicolas Brown-- 

 

He had no regrets.

 

_ “It’s expected, though. I mean, when I came here, I had nothing but my body. I didn’t have…”  _ Doug levered his one solid arm against the wall and wobbled to his feet. The other was cut clean to the bone. It would have been useless if he survived anyway. _ “Apparently, I only have until I’m twenty-five. When Dad died, he was over thirty, so I thought I’d be the same… But it’s shorter than I thought. I wonder if I inherited it from my mother. So, anyway...” _

 

Doug had run out of time. He had expected it, but still, he wanted the time to show these truths--to prove them over and over again. A hundred times over. If he had the time, maybe he still wouldn’t have said them. Gal knew how much Doug admired him. Doug had modeled his entire look after him. Gal was his role model, the example he needed when he was young and alone, and he had formed his entire outlook on life on Galahad. He was the reason Doug gained back his fighting spirit. He gave him a reason to live, no matter how short that might be.

 

There’s no way to put that to words. Emotions and concepts in a relationship too vastly nebulous to convey in any language. He would just sound dumb if he tried. No, Doug would have to make do with the video message hidden in his dog tags. The last record of a body the government would burn and wipe from their files, dumped in a pit full of the bodies of his brethren and brothers-in-arms.

 

_ “Seems kinda dumb, doesn’t it?” _

 

Doug never said good-bye to Nicolas. Did he even care? That guy, he was hard to read. Even harder to understand. Doug never could understand other people, not really. But that man was stranger than most. He acted like Doug was a chore, a sack of rice he was saddled with carrying around. Nicolas definitely never put any effort into talking with him or communicating much of anything at all beyond short grunts here and there. Still, they both had their roots in the West Gate Mercenaries. Doug would have liked to think they were friends. Did Nicolas think the same?

 

He would die without knowing. That was okay, though. He could have lived to be a hundred and Doug never would have known. If anyone had asked him, Gal was his only friend. He of course was close with many other members in the Paulklee Guild. Hausen. Ginger. Okay, so maybe not so many. Every member was a part of his family, but he was only particularly close with a small handful. 

 

Doug was never very social, even amongst his family. He may have remade himself in Galahad’s image, but he was still ever and always himself. Nothing could change his boisterous yet reserved personality. Simultaneously loud and quiet. Gal helped him realize that. He gave him the confidence to be himself, even when overcome by whatever embarrassing, stupid thing he had done.

 

A brief image flashed in Doug’s mind: Nicolas in a hospital bed, Doug thrashing about in his own cot, red face covered by his own hands. It brought a strained smirk to his lips now. What kind of face would Nicolas make when he saw Doug’s body, once he was through with it? Probably a funny one. Maybe he’d laugh. He’d have to tell Gal a joke to tell Nicolas so he’d laugh. He didn’t want any gloomy faces around that pit of bodies. Smiles only. Jokes and smiles and drinks. That was the Paulklee Guild.

 

Haze wavered in the streets, either from the heat or unconsciousness drifting in his peripheral. Heavy feet trudged down the stone path. Doug had something else to say…something he had to tell Galahad. What was it? He grappled for it. The thoughts and memories he had waded through before were melted into a muddled pool. He was waist-deep in it, searching for the last remaining chunks of ice that hadn’t drifted away or become the ocean he was now paddling through. His memories had once been great glaciers. Mountains. Now  _ this. _

  
He thrust his own two working, solid, unbloodied hands into the water and came back with nothing. Falling through his fingers, nothing. Just that one thought, there, just out of his reach, a slab of ice just wide enough for him to scramble on top. Put off drowning for just one moment and  _ think-- _

 

There. Gal formed from the haze right before him. He was miles away. He was right in front of him, as always. Doug fell into his chest. All strength left him. He had made it. Just a little longer, and he could rest. 

 

Doug opened his mouth to tell Gal everything he had been saving up til now, but only blood left his lips. It bubbled in his throat, gurgling and groaning in place of words. 

 

He would have to make do. 

 

Galahad leaned his great, heavy head down to Doug’s level. He didn’t want to burden Gal’s head further, but he’d die if he didn’t tell him. He’d die if he did. He had to do this.

 

His lips parted.

 

_ “...If it’s you, gifted, living a long life… I guess you go through these records more than anyone else. I bet you’re sick of it. ...But even so...I…” _

 

He never got a single real word out. But Galahad and Doug knew each other well enough that they had no need for spoken words. Over the years, Doug screamed sentences to Galahad that he knew he didn’t mean, or meant something different entirely. They had their own language by now.

 

Doug was able to deliver the general message. 

 

“Just wait,” Gal said. “We’ll be with you soon. You did a good job.”

 

_ “I hope...you’re the one who gets this.” _

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe this wasn't much. But I hope it was enough. 
> 
> You'll see your friends soon enough, Doug. You won't be waiting too long.


End file.
